


All the World's a Stage

by SylphOfPaperPlanes



Series: Pietro Pietro & Company [5]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 07:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2221482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylphOfPaperPlanes/pseuds/SylphOfPaperPlanes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard enough for the newly-reopened Xavier's Institute to accept changes, to the point that some need an escape from it, and others have a hard time fitting in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the World's a Stage

Wanda couldn’t move past the doorway of the room.

After arriving at the mansion the evening before, she had insisted on sleeping on a couch in the parlor rather than have her own room. She supposed it was in fear that she would have to bolt at a moment’s notice, and she didn’t want to have to say goodbye to anywhere that she would miss.

And now she was standing before a room that the professor had insisted she take while she stayed here, if only to save her spine from the uncomfortable sofa. The only reason she had agreed to the space was so that she could break away from the anyone that had the potential to talk to her. Spending an evening in a main room had its downsides, and that was having to keep up an act of sanity for everyone around.

The room wasn’t actually that bad. Gauzy curtains blocked most of the morning light, but let the rest filter through onto dark hardwood floors, an elaborate wallpaper, and a lacy white bedspread. A desk sat under the window, and a dresser was home to a mirror that seemed far too fragile for comfort. The bed frame itself was carved in a beautiful cherry wood, with vines meticulously etched into the bedposts. She wanted nothing more than to brush her fingers against the frame and sit on the silky sheets, but that would mean setting foot in the space she refused to call her own.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like it. No, she didn’t like the motel rooms and the pavement when she couldn’t afford them. She wished for her old room, the one back in DC with bright red walls and photographs she had taken plastered above the bed. The one with the black bedspread that was hand-patched and pillows that were just a little too flat. The one with the lightswitch that never quite worked right after she had hit it in rage and the burn marks on the ceiling from when her mutation had first revealed itself.

The room here in the mansion was perfect, but not her perfect. It was touched and designed for someone other than her, from someone with far better taste and a care for comfort rather than memory. There was no trace of anything personal save a small stack of textbooks on the desk. No photographs hung on the walls and the bedspread seemed to barely have been slept on in years much less torn and well worn like hers was at home.

Wanda didn’t want to make it hers.

She wasn’t even sure if her mother had taken down her photographs, removed the bedsheets, or fixed the light switch while she was gone. She knew Peter would have fought tooth and nail to keep things as they were, but there was a point that her twin would have to give in and break the stillness she had left in her wake. Even Lorna would have given in at one point or another and helped to pick discarded clothes off the floor and pack them away in boxes.

And that was when she realized that she didn’t have a home anymore.

It barely registered with Wanda when she lifted her weight from the doorframe, and much less so when she took measured steps into the room. She heard the bag from her shoulder hit the bed, but couldn’t bring herself to do the same. She instead settled for sitting on the floor with her back against the mattress. Her knees curled to her chest, and she felt herself collapsing into her own personal black hole that she had held fast in her heart. Hands clutched at her ankles to keep her from ruining the room with her powers like she always ended up doing.

Because if she did that, she would have to claim it as her own.

* * *

 

Hank stepped off the train, with Alex close behind, into the heavy mess of Grand Central Station. The booming sounds and rush of people was enough to get his skin to crawl, even while on an average dose of the serum. The two moved through the crowd with minor difficulty, passing between beggars and businessmen in typical New York fashion.

It wasn’t until they reached the entrance to the street outside and broke away from the rush of commuters that they stopped to talk.

“Hank, I know the professor said we should, and you’re a stickler for the rules, but do we really have to go see this fucking play?” Alex asked, removing the tickets from his pocket and inspecting the print.

Hank, taking a moment to enjoy the air that was fresh in comparison to the cramped train and crowded station, froze and turned to the other. “First, I’m not. Second, he gave us the day off, so I think we should take the opportunity. I’m not too keen on dealing with the uh, new students that arrived.”

“I’m not saying we should go back to the school, just that I think we’re both a little sick of drama with Shakespeare-on-fast-forward around, and it would be nice to just spend a day in the city.”

“I don’t think he’s that bad.” Hank shrugged and took the tickets, noting that the time printed on it gave them plenty of leeway if they changed their mind.

Alex only crossed his arms, taking a second to raise an eyebrow in amusement. “He reminds me of when Scott was practicing for the school play in middle school. So yes, he’s that bad.”

Just as Hank planned on responding, a woman bumped into the Alex, nearly sending him off balance while she quickly apologised and rushed off as most of the people here tended to do. Suddenly, the both of them realized that arguing in the middle of a crowded street wasn’t the best idea, and the scientist caved in if only to get some quiet. “Fine, what’s your big idea for a day in the city then?”

“Well, we can start with lunch -I’m hoping you brought cash with you, bozo- and then we can work from there.” He replied, still rubbing his shoulder from the collision.

“Not sure if you noticed, but it’s ten thirty.” He pocketed the tickets and offered a tight smile.

“And by the time we get to the diner, it’ll be around eleven. Come on, give me some credit here.” Alex started walking in order to stop blocking the crowd, expecting Hank to follow behind.

Hank quickly jogged to catch up, not as fast as he could have without shoes, but faster than the other would have expected. “We could take a cab, you know.”

The yellow cabs in question darted across the street beside them in the midmorning traffic. They were as much a staple to New York City as the cigarette smoke in the air or the tourist shops next to every corner store. And a walk that would take somewhere around thirty minutes? Anyone would prefer the few dollars for a car ride.

Except, apparently, Alex. His eyes locked warily onto a taxi halted at a red light, and for a single moment, Hank feared he would break down. The telltale clouds descended over his face, and eyes filled with a strange sort of distance.

Alex breaking down wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence. After prison and Vietnam, along with anything and everything that fell between, he sure as hell had a right to, and people in the mansion and slowly stopped pushing it. Just that morning, he had starting crying over breakfast, completely losing it after reading the nutritional information on a box of cereal. Everyone halted what they were doing, and gave him space at a moment’s notice. Even Pietro knew to snatch a different meal and make himself scarce, a feat that practically nothing can achieve. It might have been the threat of Alex angry. Or the threat of Alex angry with the ability to shoot lasers.

Again, everyone learned quite quickly not to push things they didn’t understand about him.

The light turned green, and the cab pulled away around a corner. This snapped him out of whatever trance he was in while he sighed and seemed to look up to the clouds flying between the tall buildings. “No cabs today, okay?”

No questions, no need to rip the stitches out of wounds no one could really help heal.

“Okay.”

* * *

 

Leaving the school for Vermont without permission or warning had its consequences for Pietro, even if it meant that he found his sister.

The most notable of the consequences was being “grounded” for a month, unable to leave the premises. Still, the professor was without much of a way to enforce it on the teen with the ability to literally run at the speed of sound. Pietro had been out and back at least five times since the ban was set the night before without so much of a word from Charles. He just had to be a little more subtle about it.

One of the lesser issues he faced was the list of chores he was presented with. “Active reform” was what the professor had called it. Pietro didn’t really mind, instead taking it in as something to do in the god-awful silence that dragged around the mansion like humidity. A nice distraction to the current events that usually at least had a hold of the back of his mind if not the full thing. Of course, he would never let on that he got any enjoyment out of this. God knew people might expect something from him if that was the case.

Even now, vaulting over the railing in the foyer with a dust cloth in hand, he took a strange amount of enjoyment in the work. It was a chance to run and dart about, even if several students still slept in the rooms he cleaned. (He never quite understood how they could bear sleeping past ten on a Saturday like today, but to each their own, he guessed.)

He was doing a brief run through of the rooms on the main floor, wiping down the statues and untouched vases until they shone with value they must not have held for over a decade. He made a mental note to ask Lorna to pick flowers later, both giving her something to do for the day and anything to brighten up the rooms stacked with books and antiques that seemed to breathe dust with every touch.

After he had swept through every room, Pietro guessed it was time to go make the beds of the children already awake and blearily wandering around the house. It was mostly the younger children, from what he could tell, but he assumed that least one or two of the other teenagers were hovering around in the kitchen with the leftovers stashed in the fridge (In lieu of Hank and Alex cooking that morning, both of them having said that they would go into the city for the day and that the kids could “grab cereal, or in a worst case scenario, make toast -and no Scott, that means with the toaster and not your eyes, for _the last goddamn time_.”).

In a tenth of a second, he rushed upstairs and was in one of the bedrooms shared by two of the younger students. Fold the blankets, fluff the pillows, throw open the curtains and bask in the sunlight that flooded through. It was like clockwork as he repeated it in the next two rooms, all luckily empty of residents.

As he worked, he let himself hum showtunes he had heard over the few months he had gotten interested in theatre. To anyone listening as he raced around the bedrooms, he would sound almost like a high-pitched bee’s buzz, but in his own little world of rapid-paced cleaning, it was a string of melodies that he could never get quite right, and he didn’t mind it at all.

Pietro went on like that for the rest of the student bedrooms, making the beds and taking loose change (and possibly a few bills) from the carpet and bedside tables until he got to one of the spare rooms. He only intended to pull the curtains open and straighten the covers before he nearly tripped over a figure curled against the frame of the bed.

And then realized that it was his twin.

Pietro knew what was going on. When they were younger, it had been “Wanda’s Quiet Time”, when she was emotionally strained and stressed and didn’t trust her own hands not to destroy something. Pietro had gotten to be the best in the house at identifying when she was about to either burst out in rage or snap and shut down in fear. Lorna had always said it it was probably because he was just fast enough for it, but their mother claimed it was a twin thing.

He gently sat down on the floor next to her, resting his head of silvery hair on the mattress while hers rested on her knees. His eyes flickered over the lights in the ceiling and along the crown molding, waiting for the right words to come to the surface. Wanda barely seemed to register his presence, again another common symptom of her state.

“I’m sorry.” He finally said, and this finally elicited a shift in the dark curtain of hair around her face, not enough to reveal her emotion in any way, but still something to show that she was willing to interact with the world for the time being.

“Why?”

“Oh, I kind of just... assumed that this was my fault. Usually is, to be fair.” He nudged her shoulder, a halfhearted smile already on his face. “And I guess I shouldn’t bring up the whole ’ripping you away from your vigilante justice’ part?”

Wanda looked up, her hair falling back from her face and revealing how tired her eyes seemed to be. “You shouldn’t.”

“Good to know.” It was quiet for a long moment, but not uncomfortable. Pietro waited until she had at least seemed to register his response before darting off to inspect the rest of the room. It was one of the few that he hadn’t explored before, and it was obvious that it hadn’t been touched in ages. Charles had said the school had been opened once before, prior to the war, and it seemed that it was the last time anyone had even thought about this place. He took a quick second to pull open the curtains and let the light come flooding in. It brightened the room, somewhat, and that was just about all it needed.

While Wanda ever so slowly pulled her hair from her face and regained slight composure, Pietro went to check the textbooks left on the desk, having to check twice at the subjects listed on the spines.

“You didn’t tell me you were taking classes a year behind.”

“Trust me,” She rubbed an eye with the heel of a hand with a tired sigh. “I didn’t know I was taking classes at all until this morning. I’m supposed to be ‘fitting in for the time being’, and I have to play catchup for the year I spent... away.”

He didn’t even turn around while flicking through the books, even though his voice sped up with something that only his sisters could recognize as excitement. “Good thing you have me, then. Hank doesn’t give much of a shit in science unless you stop trying, you’ve always killed it in math, and the professor likes teaching the classics in English. That’s where I’m going to be the most help. History can be-”

“Hold it.” She seemed to have recovered enough to laugh, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she struggled to regain control of her words. “Peter, I’ve been in an English class with you, and you hate the subject more than life itself.”

Pietro paused in flipping through the textbook he was holding, and dropped it back onto the pile. “Remember when I got kicked out of chess club? And math league?” In a flash, he was sitting on the center of the bed, trying to ignore the puff of dust that rose around him. He very nearly got pulled back into a memory of the many, many times he had sat in Wanda’s room and listened to the both of them complain about the entire world around them like it was the twins vs. the universe itself. Of course, any reminiscing was broken by the messenger bag beside him on the bed, something that traveled further than he could even hope to.

Wanda shifted so that she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing him before talking. “I remember your exit from the math league being more in the style of ‘walking out in a blaze of glory’ than ‘being kicked out’.”

“The club president would fight you over that term had she had the chance. But after you left, I kinda got kicked out of pretty much every club. Funny how that happens, right? I stopped being one of the strange twins and then I was just strange. And pretty annoying, add insult to injury.”

His sister stood, straightening the jacket she so fondly wore before beginning to unpack her bag into the dresser, placing papers and the like on the desk beside the textbooks. “As rare as it is to hear you admit you are annoying, what does this have to do with you liking English, again?”

“Jeez, I’m getting to that.” He leaned back and began counting the hair-thin cracks in the ceiling due to the house’s age. it was a nice distraction for about half a second before he had already counted and memorized every fracture twice. “After getting kicked out of almost every club, I decided to spend all that sudden free time writing scripts and putting on these one man shows. It’s mostly Shakespeare stuff. Newfound respect, and all that.”

It seemed to take Wanda a few moments longer than usual to process that. But when her face finally seemed to register what he said, it wasn’t shock of confusion on her face, just something resembling knowing and a roll of the eyes that could accompany the phrase “Boys will be boys.” Or more accurately in the situation, “My weird brother will be my weird brother.” She promptly went back to putting shirts away in drawers without too much of an afterthought.

“Nothing? No wondering if I’m insane? How any of the performances went?” He wasn’t going to say it, but he was somewhere nearing mock-offended.

“When you go and ask how the various raids I pulled went, maybe. As for your performances, I can guess how they went by how much you were practicing your lines in the parlor. While I was trying to sleep.”

“All the world’s a stage, sis. I’m gonna suggest you start acting sooner than later.” Pietro darted to the doorway while taking in how the room seemed to be filling with life faster than he had expected. He hadn’t noticed how nice the view out the window was, overlooking the gardens and the forest beyond. Wanda seemed to notice it too, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and staring outside with a distant look in her eyes.

“It’s hard to start what you never stopped doing.” She called over her shoulder at him, and he only smiled back before sprinting off. She didn’t need anything other than some time to be alone right now, even if she didn’t fully know it. He guessed he just knew her that well, or maybe it really was just a twin thing.

* * *

 

Hank and Alex sat at a table in a tiny diner, chrome plating half the surfaces and linoleum getting the rest. It wasn’t exactly Hank’s idea of a great time at first, but the other had claimed to know the cook from his time in the army. Which, to the blonde, must have equated the trip to a well spent, full day.

The scientist watched the other pick the last fry off the plate between them. At one point, earlier in the hour, it had held a sandwich (eaten mostly by Alex) and fries (eaten entirely by Alex), but now was the home to only small amounts to grease. He wasn’t actually very hungry, and seemed to have been the only one of the two to take the advice of eating a large breakfast. A coffee and cup of soup had been more than enough for him.

“...And I’m just kind of sick of having to put on a mask all the time, y’know?” Alex’s words snapped him out of the inspection of the less-than-fine china. “Of course you don’t. You spent ten fucking years playing housekeeper and drug dealer for Charles.”

He looked around quickly, trying to gauge the reactions of the few other patrons in the restaurant. Alex wasn’t exactly... subtle with the way he delivered information. “Mask? What do you think the serum is?”

“Emotional mask, keep up smartass.” He rolled his eyes before taking a long drink of his coffee, darker than Hank knew it could be made. The other had started up a caffeine addiction after quickly learning that it wasn’t exactly acceptable walking around drunk before noon. “Spent too long putting up walls against prison wardens, then smiles for Charles and Erik, back to walls for the sergeants, and smiles again for a lot of screaming kids.”

It was off putting how casually it had been said, and the fallout of the statement was a solid ten seconds of Hank staring down into the cup in his hands while the speaker quickly asked the waitress for the bill. It was a strange thing, talking about their “masks” as though they were physical things. For Hank, it was a needle and prayers and lies, but for Alex... it must have been his life twice over.

It seemed to take ages for the bill to arrive, and both of them made little to no attempts at small talk. In the end, they split the cost (Alex would claim evenly while Hank knew otherwise) and walked out into the midday sun.

“Do you want to still go see that play?” Alex asked, somewhat sheepish in the way he rested a hand at the back of his neck. “Honestly, I can’t think of anything else to do for the rest of the day, and going back to the school seems less than ideal.”

This, again, caught Hank off guard. Two for two, if he was keeping score.“Yeah, sure, I mean... We better get walking if we want to make it on time, but-”

“We could take a taxi. Would be a hell of a lot easier, don’t you think?” Was Alex’s only reply before heading up to the edge of traffic and hailing a cab. Hank hung back for a moment, realizing what had made the other on edge before. A name, a face, a pile of ash that used to be a cab driver before he joined the wrong group of people for those who wanted to do the right thing.

Darwin.

Alex didn’t seem to be in much pain at the moment, though his tight smile while squinting into the bright, fast world around him might have been missed by those less observant.

Hank ran to catch up with the other. They had time to take off the masks later, turn blue and teary-eyed and drunk and any combination of those they needed, but for now, they could act. They were used to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand that's it!I really really enjoyed getting to write Wanda and Hank's POV in this, and I really hope I did Wanda justice in this. Any thoughts? Comments, Suggestions, Questions? Ask here or via [my tumblr](http://algebrasunshine.tumblr.com/ask/).


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